Q & A
by r4ven3
Summary: A two-shot set part way through S.8, featuring Harry & Ruth, and from Harry's POV. Harry has some questions to ask of Ruth, but will she provide answers? AU.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: Here's another offering to add to my (obvious) HR obsession. I hope you like it. It's 2 chapters long.**_

_**It is written (almost) totally from Harry's point of view, and is set some time mid-series 8. Chiefly AU.**_

* * *

Viewed from up here, the world made sense to him, his life made sense. The cityscape remained static, familiar, while the sun rose and set, the clouds built, burst, then disappeared after the rain, the wind whipped his skin, then died down, leaving him chilled to the bone. He hears the door to the roof opening, and then she is beside him, almost touching, so close the hairs on his skin rise to the electricity in the air.

"You did the right thing, Harry," she says after some time. "Had we not gone in, more people would have died. There were children in there, and most of them will be tucked up in their own beds tonight, thanks to you. I know it must sound like I'm -"

"It's alright, Ruth. I hear what you're saying." His voice is clipped, and he resists a powerful urge to look at her. She can't know that he's not here on the roof because of the day's operation. She can't know that his musings are personal, and that they, as always, centre around her.

"It's just that -" She tries again, her hand on his arm, grasping him through the sleeve of his coat.

It is only then that he turns to face her. "The debriefing is behind us, Ruth. I've resigned myself to the operation being less than perfect. Now, can we just drop it?"

She nods and drops her hand. She wants to give comfort, but it appears to be unwelcome. Despite everything, she stays, standing beside him, a little more distance between them than before. Minutes pass, until Harry sighs and begins speaking.

"There is something. I've wanted to talk to you ever since you came back …... from …... from Cyprus. Since …..." His voice tails off. Neither wish to be reminded of Mani, George's death, and Nico. He knows she still grieves for her lost family. "There are some things I need to ask you."

He turns to look at her, and sees her profile, her jutting chin, her jaw set hard as she stares out across London. She doesn't welcome questions about her life in Cyprus, but he wants to know. He _needs_ to know. They had been something to one another, he and she. More than just `something'. Their kiss on the dock had spoken of all the words left unsaid. Surely what they had been to one another then had not simply dissolved into the ethers to disappear forever. _Matter can neither be created nor destroyed_ …... the law of conservation of energy. Love is the most powerful energy force of all, and if it was once there, then it remains …... somewhere.

"Of course, you are free to not answer."

"Of course."

"Did you love George?"

"You've asked me that before."

"I know I have." He waits, but she is silent. "Alright, if that one's too hard, here's another. How come you so easily fell into his bed after …... after only a few months, weeks, when, despite what we were to one another, you held me at arm's length?"

Suddenly, without a word, Ruth turns and leaves the rooftop. By the time he turns around to watch her leave, the door is already closing behind her. Harry turns once again to the view of the city, and sighs heavily.

* * *

He left the Grid earlier than usual. He had sent everyone home after the debriefing. By the time he'd come inside from the rooftop, Ruth had gone. Why did he continually botch things so royally with her? What had George had that he didn't? Stupid question, really. George had been young and handsome, and he had given her a house, and a normal life. He, on the other hand, would never be young again, had never been conventionally handsome, and while he worked for MI5, he could never give her any kind of `normal' life.

He suddenly gathered his keys and his phone, and left the Grid for the day, deciding to walk home. It was cold, but hadn't rained since the morning, and he wanted to clear the cobwebs. Walking helped the thinking process, and he needed to do some serious thinking. He could not solve the riddle that was Ruth at all. Then again, he had little idea why it was he shut her out whenever she offered help or friendship. She had sought him out on the roof to offer comfort and support, and what did he do? He turned the conversation around to George, a subject she'd been keen to avoid. _Pearce,_ y_ou're a bloody idiot!_

The early evening air was crisp and cold, and he tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat as he walked, head down, through the London streets. He was heading for home, but in a random, meandering fashion. His head was filled with thoughts of Ruth, and how it was clear to him that she no longer had feelings for him. He turned to cross a pedestrian crossing, and too late saw a car heading towards him. The driver braked hard, but not before the car had hit him, and he rolled up the bonnet until his shoulder and the right side of his face smacked against the windscreen, then he rolled off the bonnet and on to the road. It all seemed to happen in an instant. He lay there, assessing his injuries, while the driver of the car got out and and ran to him.

"I didn't see, you, mate. Are you alright?" The driver, in his forties, knelt beside Harry, but appeared unsure of what to do. His hands hovered over Harry, not touching him.

Harry tried to sit up, but his right arm was in severe pain, and both his hips, one thigh and one knee hurt. His face was numb. He lay back down again, thinking that lying there on the road, his body aching, he may just curl up and try to sleep, shutting out the world around him, cocooned within his own pain. "I think I may have broken my arm," he said quietly at last.

"Do you want me to call an ambulance?"

"God no," Harry replied. "Just get me to hospital, and I'll overlook the fact that you drove through a pedestrian crossing after I'd stepped on to it."

"Sure, sure. St Bede's is only a couple of blocks away." He called to a group of curious onlookers. "Can a couple of you help me get this man on to his feet and into my car?"

* * *

Harry left the hospital under his own steam. He wore a plaster cast on his right forearm, having fractured his right ulna, close to the wrist, and his arm was in a sling. _It had to be my right arm too_, he thought with irritation. He had abrasions on the heels of both hands, torn trousers where he'd hit the road, a badly scraped knee, a badly bruised thigh, and his hips hurt where he'd rolled his body to take the brunt of the fall on to the road. The right side of his face ached, as this had been what had hit the top of the windscreen as he'd rolled into it. No doubt his face would soon show bruising. The doctor had insisted on putting butterfly tapes across the cut above his right eye. He was sure he looked at least as bad as he felt. He had declined the offer of painkillers. Harry had enough painkillers in his cupboard at home to render him comatose for a month. The doctor had assured him that had he not allowed his body to match the momentum of the car, as well as the direction it was travelling, his injuries would have been much worse. He hailed a cab outside the hospital, and headed for home.

As soon as he'd closed his front door behind him, then keyed in his security code, he knew something in his house was different, out of place. His dog hadn't run to meet him, and the kitchen light was on. The light being on immediately discounted burglars or terrorists - that is, unless they were stupid burglars or terrorists. He dropped his keys on to the hallway table, slipped his shoes off his feet, shrugged off his coat and hung it on a hook, and crept to the kitchen. Nothing. Other than the light being on, a used coffee mug sat on the table. He would never have left that there.

Not bothering any more with creeping, he walked to the living room, and there, fast asleep on his sofa was Ruth, and curled up against her legs was a sleeping Scarlet.

"Some guard dog you are," Harry grumbled, as Scarlet opened her eyes and sat up, tail wagging. If dogs were capable of guilt, then Scarlet's face was a portrait of guilt.

Harry stood watching as Ruth opened her eyes and tried to achieve focus, taking in her surroundings, before her eyes settled upon him.

"Christ, Harry," she said, sitting up. "What happened to you?"

"A car hit me," he said, almost as an aside. "And more to the point, what are you doing in my house?"

Her eyes met his, her guilt matching that of Scarlet's. "It had seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Oh," was all he said, and then, "I need some painkillers." He moved to the sideboard and poured himself a generous measure of single malt. "Want one?" he asked Ruth.

"Thanks, just a small one."

Harry sat in the chair opposite the sofa while he sipped his drink.

"Tell me about the car hitting you," she said.

So he did, although he left out the bit about his mind being so full of her at the time of impact that he hadn't felt a thing until his body had come to a thudding, painful halt on the road. When he finished his drink he poured himself another, but put it on the coffee table after having only taken one sip.

"Your suit's ruined," she observed, to which he nodded.

"I need a hot bath," he said, as he turned to leave the room. "If you're planning on staying, you can make yourself useful and order some dinner. The takeaway menus are in the drawer beside the cooker. Pay for it out of this," he added, tossing his wallet on to the table.

"Do you have any preferences?" Ruth called after him.

"Just so long as it's hot and edible."

Getting undressed and into the bath was relatively easy. The real test would be getting himself out of it. He lay back in the far-too-hot water, laying his head on the edge of the bath, his right forearm resting along the side of the bath. He had little idea why he had intimated Ruth should stay and share a meal with him. He was aware he sometimes enjoyed the torture of having her near, even when she so patently felt little for him. At least he was feeling _something, _which was better than the numbness which had been his constant companion while she'd been in exile. His love for her had become something bittersweet, often anguished, but mostly unrequited. He closed his eyes and emptied his mind of all thoughts of her. He was in enough pain without adding his love for her into the mix.

"Harry, are you alright in there?" Ruth's voice through the door brought him out of his reverie. He had no idea how long he'd been there, but the bath water was now tepid.

"Give me a moment," he called back.

He only had a hand-rail set in the tiles above the bath to grasp with his left hand and lift himself up. If he couldn't manage, then he'd have to ask Ruth for help. He leaned forward to lift the plug to drain the water, and once he felt purchase with his feet on the bottom of the bath, he grasped the rail with his left hand and pulled himself up. Easy. He stepped out of the bath, took a towel from the towel rail, and clumsily wrapped it around himself. Christ, how was he going to dry himself? He could either stand there until he dried, or ask for help from Ruth. And the latter option was out of the question, because if she came anywhere near him in his current state of nakedness, his body would give away everything he felt for her.

"I'm fine," he called to her. "Thanks, I can manage."

What was wrong with him? What he really wanted was for her to come into the bathroom and help him dry himself. Somewhere, in all the confusion and embarrassment, they would laugh about the situation, then the towel would somehow fall to the floor, she'd kiss him, he'd kiss her back, they'd stumble to the bedroom, fall on the bed, then make love. Cue music.

_You're soft in the head, Pearce. Why would she want a battered old wreck like you?_

Well, she wouldn't, would she?

So why was she still here, in his house?


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: This final chapter follows on from the last one. **_

_**Thanks so much to all you kind reviewers. Strangely, I wrote the bulk of this story - both chapters - in one sitting, and it needed very little editing. I would like this to happen with every story, but it doesn't. **_

* * *

"I might need help getting dressed," Harry said to her as he opened the bathroom door to find her waiting anxiously. "Last time I broke my arm it was the left one, and Jane helped me dress. That was a long time ago. Just wait outside my bedroom, and I'll call if I need you." (He also remembered Jane had helped him undress, often leading to some tender moments between them, but Ruth had no need to hear about that.)

He was sure her eyes were taking in his legs, and his chest, both bare, or perhaps it was just his mind messing with him. Fortunately, he managed to put on his underwear, his jeans and a shirt, but he couldn't manage the buttons without a struggle.

"Ruth," he called, "I need your help."

She noticed how forlorn he looked when she entered the room. He hadn't yet combed his hair, so it was messy and sticking up in places. She wanted to smooth it down with her hands, but thought better of it. He'd closed the zipper on his jeans, but was having difficulty with the button. She pushed his hand out of the way, and stood close to him while she deftly closed the button, her hair tickling his chin, her fingers cold against the skin of his stomach. He tried to think of old ladies with bad breath and too much facial hair while her fingers slid against his stomach, behind the waistband of his jeans, only inches from a part of him which he was praying would not move in any way at all. Then her knuckles touched his chest as she fastened the two buttons of his polo shirt. He stared at the wall behind her, all the while longing to watch her, and remember her here, in his bedroom.

"Jumper?" she asked, and he nodded. She helped him put it over his head, and he put his good arm through the left sleeve, and she helped him straighten it at the neck. For a moment, her arms embraced him as she pulled down the waistband of his jumper, straightening it around him, and were he to move only fractionally, his lips would touch her temple. He fought the urge to put his arms around her – well one arm, anyway. He felt her breath on his throat, and smelled her perfume. "What about your feet, Harry? You'll need something on them."

"Socks will do."

"Do you have woolly ones?"

"I have woollen socks, but I'm not sure if they're woolly."

"Woollen will do. Have you finished with me now?" she asked, and their eyes met, embarrassment evident, his thoughts again having drifted into the realm of his private fantasies.

* * *

They sat at the table and ate in comfortable silence, their embarrassment having been left upstairs in Harry's bedroom.

"Wine?" he asked, and Ruth nodded, so he poured them each a glass.

"Are you taking painkillers, Harry?"

"Don't nag."

"I'm not. I just don't want you passing out downstairs. I don't think I could manage to even drag you upstairs."

He entertained a private scenario in which Ruth, having dragged his comatose body upstairs, and exhausted by her efforts, collapsed on to the bed beside him, so that when they both woke some time during the night, she'd fall into his arms, and they would make passionate and bone-crushing love. Cue music.

"Let me enjoy myself. Being knocked down by a car is no fun, I can tell you."

They'd finished eating the Chinese meal, and Harry had poured them each a second glass of white wine, when he addressed her presence in his house.

"Why did you feel the need to break in tonight?"

"I knocked on the door, but you weren't home."

"Do you always do that?"

"Do what?"

"Break in when the person's not home."

"Only with you, Harry."

"I suppose I should feel privileged."

"If you like. I came here tonight to answer the questions you asked me when we were on the roof today."

"You don't have to do that. If it makes you -"

"But I want to, Harry. I need to give you answers. It's the least I can do. I've had to think a bit about your questions, though. That's why I didn't answer you straight away."

"Didn't answer is right. You ran from me as fast as you could."

"I sometimes don't think very clearly in your presence. I had to get away from you …... and quickly."

His eyes held hers across the table, and he could see that she was uncomfortable under his gaze. He dropped his eyes to the glass of wine in front of him.

"I didn't love George …... well, that's not quite true. I loved him in a way, but I wasn't _in love_ with him. Not like I was with you."

_Was_. She said _was_. What about now?

"It was a comfortable, predictable kind of love. It was pleasant, often a lot of fun, but not passionate. Not for me, anyway. I'd known passion. When our hands touched – you and me – it was like …..." Ruth looked away for a moment before she continued. "He always felt more for me than I did for him. And I always made it clear to him that my heart belonged with someone else. Strangely, he was prepared to accept that."

"So, if you were not _in love_ with him, why …...?"

"Harry, this – what I'm telling you now – it's not all about you. It's about me. It's about what it was like for me when I was in Cyprus."

He waited while she took another mouthful of her wine. His eyes were watching her, and she was looking everywhere but at him.

"I'm also about to answer your second question, and I'm asking you to listen to what I say, so that you understand. I never meant to hurt you. Ever. But I was lonely in Cyprus. I missed you, I longed for you. I …... I ….." Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered the time she was alone in a foreign land. "I waited for you to come and get me. Do you know what I did almost every day I was there?"

He shook his head, not daring to speak, not wanting to break the spell.

"There was a bus between Paphos and Polis. It would arrive several times each day, and I'd make sure I was somewhere nearby so I could watch the passengers disembark. I even bought myself binoculars so that I could watch the bus from Paphos pull up in the square from outside the hospital while I ate my lunch." She hesitated, and began fiddling with the stem of her wine glass. Harry topped up her wine. "I'd watch the passengers get off the bus each day. I was hoping one of them would be you, Harry. Had you got off that bus at any time during my stay in Cyprus, George wouldn't have stood a chance with me. It was always you, Harry. It was always you."

Harry wanted to walk around the table and take her in his arms, but more than that, he wanted her to keep talking. How long it had been that he'd waited for her to say this.

"I knew that what I gave to George while I was with him is what I should have given you. It took me until I moved in with him to recognise that. Do you understand me?"

Harry nodded slowly, unable to speak.

"So, you see, I fell into his bed, as you stated it, because you didn't arrive on that bus. Had it not been George, it would probably have been someone else. It didn't matter much to me. It was you I wanted, but you didn't come for me. I believed that I would never see you again. Does that answer your question?"

"Partly -"

"Oh, I know …... you want to know …... if I loved you as I claimed to, why it was I didn't fall into _your_ bed …..."

He nodded.

"Because you mattered, Harry. Because falling into bed with you was never an option. Not back then. The timing had to be right, because with you and me it was never just about the sex. We were always a whole lot more than that. We still are. I was so much in love with you, Harry, and despite myself …..." Ruth's voice was about to break, so she waited, he waited, both barely breathing. "I still am." The words were spoken so quietly they were almost a whisper, a rustle of sounds all but lost on the night air, but he heard them as though she'd shouted them from the rooftops.

And this is when both pairs of eyes – his hazel ones and her grey-blue ones – met across the table. _The love is still there_, is all he can think. _She still loves me, just as I love her. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Q.E.D._

Harry couldn't move. He could barely breathe. Those three words: _I still am_, had just turned his whole miserable life 180 degrees. He didn't know what to do.

"Harry, I think this is when you're supposed to kiss me," she said, smiling across the table at him.

He rose slowly from his chair, almost knocking over his glass of wine with the plaster cast on his arm. His eyes never left hers. By the time he reached her, she was standing, reaching out to him. He put his left hand on her cheek and closed the gap between them. He touched his lips to hers, lifted them again to watch her face, to gauge her reaction. "Harry," she said, so he put his lips back where they belonged, on her own. The kiss was gentle, but the passion was palpable, building and surging, waiting to burst from them.

He drew away from her, and put his good hand on her waist. "I love you, Ruth Evershed," he said, and drew her towards him into a clumsy embrace.

After a while, Ruth pulled out of the embrace and put her fingers on the cut above his eyebrow. "Does that hurt?" she asked.

"Not now," he replied, smiling into her eyes. "Nothing hurts any more."

She put both her arms around him and squeezed. He yelped. "Ow," he said, "_that _hurt."

"Sorry. You're a little delicate tonight. Perhaps we can save this for another night."

"Kissing doesn't hurt at all," he said, leaning towards her for another good snog.

They retired to the living room with their wine, and sat close together on the sofa, his left arm around her, holding her close to his body. He planned to never let her go. For the first time, they talked about the three years she'd been away.

She spoke of her loneliness, how much she'd missed him, and he explained how much he'd wanted to travel to wherever she was and bring her home, but had believed it would put her life in too much danger.

She told him of her life with George and Nico, and he told her how he'd managed to live his life without her, hoping she was safe, but dreaming they'd meet again some day. He told her how he'd buried himself in his work in order to keep his fears for her at bay.

She spoke of sadness and homesickness, while he spoke of grief and longing.

She told him about her job at the hospital, and he told her about the deaths of Zaf and Adam.

Then they both cried a little, for what they'd lost, and for what they would never have again.

By the time they were finished they were smiling. They now knew how much of their lives they each had to share with the other.

"Will you stay with me tonight?" he asked her.

"If you want me here, I'll stay with you."

"I do, but I don't mean for sex," he said, "although that would be nice. If we tried making love tonight, any moaning I did would be from pain, not passion." Grinning at her, he said, "But I do need someone to help me dress in the morning."

"Oh Harry, you need a wife, not a lover!"

"Perhaps I need both, preferably in the one person."

He leaned down to kiss her, and this time their mouths opened, and the kiss was deep and passionate. Their hands moved across one another, until Ruth put one hand on his bruised thigh. "Sorry," she said. "It seems that every time I get near you I do everything wrong."

"No, Ruth. Tonight you've done everything perfectly."

"Including having broken into your house?"

"Especially the house-breaking. You did that brilliantly."

She reached up to place butterfly kisses on his cheeks, his chin, his throat, his neck, and he closed his eyes and lay back against the cushions, sighing with pleasure. He no longer has to live in his fantasy world with Ruth. She is here, beside him, and she's staying.

"Bedtime?" he said at last, raising his eyebrows.

She nodded, and so hand-in-hand, they climbed the stairs to spend the first of thousands of nights together.

* * *

_**A/N: I deliberately avoided George's death in this fic, as it was something which I think Ruth understood and accepted fairly quickly, and any residual anger she had around it was directed towards herself, rather than at Harry.**_

_** Next offering is called "Nighttime Conversations". I wrote it some time ago, and had told myself I shouldn't post it ... then I thought, `what the heck'. You'll see what I mean when I post it.**_


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